Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-10-18
How the Prisoners Spent SUNDAY
and Monday.
What the Winthrop Bank Officials
Have to Say Of Young Stains
Confession.
A No. AnsOn Hotel Keeper Sheds
New Light on the Mystery.
Especial to the Kennebec Journal |

GARDINER, Oct. II. Z.
Kennebec Journal reporter has taken
some pains and spent considerable time in
| tracking out the Gardiner record of young
Stain, today. He first visited the office of
the Star of the East, and saw Mr.. o. NJ.
Blanchard, the popular agent of the COM
pany.
Mr.. Blanchard said that the freights bills
and lists were packed away in the cellar of
his store and although he feared that they
might have been destroyed by the spring
treshet, the Journal man was welcome to
make an examination and secure all the evil
dence he could. A search of the cellar with
the assistance OF his courteous assistant, Mr..
W. j. Gunner, revealed the documents some
what mouldy, but still in toerable state of
preservation. These documents have been
| forwarded to the Office of the Kennebec
Journal, and will be thoroughly examined.
If the team described by young Stain was
shipped as he Gays, it was probably in some
assumed name. cursory examination of
these records shows that a team similar to
the one described by Stain, was shipped Nov
%, 1877, to A. S. Pease at Gardiner. There
are other teams during the months of Au-
gust and November of that year, but this one
seems quite as likely to be the one mentioned
by Stain, as any. provided, of course, that
his statements are correct. A more thorough
and searching examination of these records
may reveal more than this.
After packing up these records for exam
ination at the Journal office. the scribe hunt
ed up Mr.. Mark Burns, well known truck
man of Gardiner, and for many years men,
Der of the police force of that city. In an
swer to inquiries Mr.. Burns stated that he
had known young Stain quite well during his
stay in Gardiner, as he had often
seen him about the street, and held occasional
conversation with him. During his stay in
Gardiner he had hired team at Tasksr's
livery stable and drove it off bridge in
West Gardiner sustaining some bruises. For
this he had sued the town and recovered some
5000 damages. During his residence in
Gardiner he boarded with Miss Susan Hoop
er, now Mrs. David Potter. For time he
drove team for Mr.. Potter and was then as
sistant sexton at the cemetery. While here
he went under the name of White at first,
but later gave the name of Stain. While he
was employed at the cemetery under the
name Stain, Mr.. Burns received an orde
from Waterville to arrest man named
Wight who was employed at the cemetery.
Mr.. Burns Immediately went there for the
purpose and found Staiu with whom he was
acquainted, and the sexton. In answer to
his inquiries he was informed that no such
man as Wight worked there. He went away
then but discovering thst Stain was the man
he wasted, returned to the cemetery where
he learned that the young man had skipped
Immediately after his departure. Mr.. Burns
never saw him again till about three years
ago when he ran onto him on the street of
Gardiner, and Immediately recognized him.
| From the interview with Mrs. Burns, the
Journal man sought the boarding house Of
Mr. Taylor near the steamboat wharf where
Strain claimed to have stopped, when be
came to Maine in 1877, en- route for Dex-
ter. Mr.. Taylor could recall no such name,
but his wife remembered that man by that
name had stopped at the house some years
ago, and she was quite sure that he was there
several different times. Such is the record
of Stains life in the city. The evidence
bearing on the matter of his confession is
rather meagre, but so far as it goes tends to
confirm the truth OF his story.